{{Short description|Chinese politician}} {{family name hatnote|[[Ye (surname)|Ye]]|lang=Chinese}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Ye Xiaowen | native_name = 叶小文 | image = Ye Xiaowen.jpg | image_size = | caption = | order = | office = Director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs | term_start = July 1995 | term_end = 1998 | predecessor = [[Zhang Shengzuo]] | successor = | order2 = | office2 = Director of the [[State Administration for Religious Affairs]] | term_start2 = 1998 | term_end2 = 2009 | predecessor2 = | successor2 = [[Wang Zuo'an]] | order3 = | office3 = Party Secretary of the Central Institute of Socialism | term_start3 = 2009 | term_end3 = 2016 | predecessor3 = [[Lou Zhihao]] | successor3 = [[Pan Yue (politician)|Pan Yue]] | birth_date = {{birth date and age text|August 1950}} | birth_place = [[Ningxiang]], [[Hunan]], China | death_date = | death_place = | party = [[Chinese Communist Party]] | spouse = | children = | alma_mater = [[Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences]] | occupation = Politician | profession = | footnotes = }} '''Ye Xiaowen''' ({{lang-zh|s=叶小文|p=Yè Xiǎowén}}; born August 1950) is a [[Politics of the People's Republic of China|Chinese politician]] who held various top posts relating to state regulation of [[religion in China]] from 1995 to 2009.
In 1995, Ye became the director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs under the [[State Council of the People's Republic of China|State Council]]. At the beginning of his work in the Bureau, he held a view to minimize the influence of religion in the socialist China.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ye|first=Xiaowen|date=1996|title='Dangqian Woguo de Zongjiao Wenti' [The Contemporary Religious Questions of the Motherland]|journal=Zhonggong Zhongyang Danxiao Baogao Xuan [Selected reports of the Party Central School]|volume=101|issue=5|pages=9–23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Changing Church and State Relations in Hong Kong, 1950-2000|last1=Leung|first1=Beatrice|last2=Chan|first2=Shunning|publisher=Hong Kong University Press|year=2003|location=Hong Kong}}</ref> There, he worked to prevent religious unrest, select the [[11th Panchen Lama]], and ban the [[History of Falun Gong|controversial Falun Gong group]]. In 1998, the Bureau of Religious Affairs was renamed the [[State Administration for Religious Affairs]], while Ye Xiaowen remained its director. He acknowledged presiding over religions in China, and changed policy to say that religion has a place in society, although he persecuted groups that he thought brought foreign control to Chinese churches, like the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. In 2007 he declared [[State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5]], which attempted to reduce the influence of the [[14th Dalai Lama]] and other foreign groups on the [[reincarnation]]s in [[Tibet Autonomous Region|Tibet]]. All the while, he traveled often to the United States to defend his religious policy against criticism. Ye was relieved of his religious post in September 2009 to direct the Central Institute of Socialism.
==Early life and career== Ye Xiaowen was born in 1950 to a teachers' family in [[Ningxiang|Ningxiang County]], [[Henan]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gov.cn/english/2005-09/26/content_70278.htm|title=Ye Xiaowen|publisher=[[Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China]]|date=2005-09-26|access-date=2010-08-26|archive-date=2012-04-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120405222437/http://www.gov.cn/english/2005-09/26/content_70278.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> although he grew up in [[Guizhou]].<ref name="think">{{Cite book|title=How China's Leaders Think: The Inside Story of China's Reform and What This Means for the Future|author=Kuhn, Robert Lawrence|publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]]|year=2009|isbn=978-0-470-82445-0|pages=362–372}}</ref> He joined the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) in 1975.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Ye_Xiaowen/full|title=Biography of Ye Xiaowen|publisher=China Vitae|access-date=2010-08-26|archive-date=2011-08-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812230710/http://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Ye_Xiaowen/full|url-status=live}}</ref> Ye was one of the few Chinese students to study [[sociology]] after the discipline was suppressed for 20 years, becoming vice director of the [[Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences]]. In 1985, after [[Hu Jintao]] was promoted to [[Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary|CCP committee secretary]] of Guizhou, he was made Secretary of the Guizhou [[Communist Youth League of China|Communist Youth League]]. As part of his mandate in 1992, he traveled to [[Northwest China]] to find out why some young people were religious, and to try to convert them to the Youth League instead. The reflective article he wrote earned him the attention of religious and CCP leaders in China.<ref name="think"/>
The article criticized the CCP leadership as regarding religion as "backward and fatuous", and for simply hoping that young people would become [[Atheism|atheists]]. It acknowledged that religion "has mass appeal and is going to be around for a long time", and that it is "compatible with a [[Socialism|socialist]] society." He condemned the [[Antireligion|anti-religious]] excesses of the [[Cultural Revolution]], and recommended that China loosen its grip on religion as part of the [[reform and opening up]]. On the other hand, Ye vindicates the CCP's suspicions about foreign missionaries in Europe's colonial past with China, and religion's role in overthrowing [[communist state]]s in the [[Revolutions of 1989]]. Therefore, he argues, the state must stress "self-governance, self-support, and self-sufficiency" in Chinese religious organizations. This greatly influenced Chinese [[paramount leader]] [[Jiang Zemin]]'s reformist attitudes on religion, which were attacked on both the CCP [[Right-wing politics|right]] and [[Left-wing politics|left]] for being too restrictive or not restrictive enough. Ye later reflected that he had to quote [[Opium of the people|Karl Marx on religion]] in order for the CCP members to listen to his ideas.<ref name="think"/>
==Bureau of Religious Affairs== In July 1995, Ye was appointed director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs under the [[State Council of the People's Republic of China]].<ref name="an"/><ref>{{Cite book|title=Directory of officials and organizations in China|volume=1|first=Malcolm|last=Lamb|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|year=2002|isbn=978-0-7656-1020-1|page=468|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ruZWXur5BRMC&pg=PA468|access-date=2016-10-29|archive-date=2023-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230916183824/https://books.google.com/books?id=ruZWXur5BRMC&pg=PA468|url-status=live}}</ref> One of his first tasks was to make sure that the 1995 [[CCTV New Year's Gala]] contained nothing offensive to religious people. When he saw that 100 children were set to dance with lanterns shaped as pigs' heads (pigs are [[Islamic hygienical jurisprudence|ritually unclean in Islam]]), and that it was too late to change the routine, he ordered [[China Central Television]] to take only [[long shot]]s to obscure recognition.<ref name="think"/> That same year, Ye presided over the enthronement of [[Gyaincain Norbu]], the controversial government choice for the [[11th Panchen Lama controversy|11th Panchen Lama]] of [[Tibetan Buddhism]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Search for the Panchen Lama|first=Isabel|last=Hilton|publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]|year=2001|isbn=978-0-393-32167-8|author-link=Isabel Hilton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WIJFuD-cH_IC&pg=PA281|access-date=2016-10-29|archive-date=2023-09-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230916183834/https://books.google.com/books?id=WIJFuD-cH_IC&pg=PA281|url-status=live}}</ref>
The [[Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China]] banned the controversial [[Falun Gong]] belief system in July 1995. Ye gave a press conference three months later, accusing Falun Gong of being a [[doomsday cult]], [[Antiscience|antiscientific]], anti-medicine, of harassing people en masse, and of [[tax evasion]]. He insisted that the government had to act against Falun Gong on behalf of science, civilization, and human rights,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.china.org.cn/e-fabuhui/download/news/English/PressConferences/991104/01e.htm|title=Statement by Ye Xiaowen|publisher=[[State Council Information Office]]|date=1999-11-04|access-date=2010-08-26|archive-date=2010-06-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100618120020/http://www.china.org.cn/e-fabuhui/download/news/English/PressConferences/991104/01e.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> although he promised that the police would not persecute people who practiced alone in their homes.<ref>{{Cite web|title=China and "Falun Gong"|first=Thomas|last=Lum|date=2004-01-23|publisher=[[Congressional Research Service]]}}</ref> [[Slavoj Žižek]] argues that Ye and the CCP banned Falun Gong not for their general antipathy towards religion, but for Falun Gong's insistence on "independence from state control", a commonality with Tibetan Buddhism.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11zizek.html|title=How China Got Religion|first=Slavoj|last=Zizek|author-link=Slavoj Žižek|date=2007-10-11|access-date=2010-08-26|work=[[The New York Times]]|archive-date=2012-10-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014001924/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11zizek.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
==State Administration for Religious Affairs==
===Three-Self and Order No. 5=== The Bureau of Religious Affairs was renamed the [[State Administration for Religious Affairs]] in 1998, and Ye remained its director.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gov.cn/english/2005-10/09/content_75331.htm|title=State Administration for Religious Affairs|work=China Factfile|publisher=[[Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China]]|date=2009-12-22|access-date=2010-08-26|archive-date=2011-03-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110315215929/http://www.gov.cn/english/2005-10/09/content_75331.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Here he worked to implement the doctrine of the [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement]], or Chinese churches' independence from foreign influence.<ref name="jib">{{Cite book|title=Jesus in Beijing: how Christianity is transforming China and changing the global balance of power|first=David|last=Aikman|author-link=David Aikman|publisher=[[Regnery Publishing]]|year=2003|isbn=978-0-89526-128-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/jesusinbeijingho00aikm/page/176 176–178]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/jesusinbeijingho00aikm/page/176}}</ref> In practice, this meant the attempted eradication of [[Roman Catholicism in China|Chinese Catholicism]] loyal to [[Holy See|Rome]] (which he considered "colonial") and not to the [[Catholic Patriotic Association|official Catholic Church in China]].<ref name="an"/> This crackdown was received poorly by international audiences, so he held a press conference in [[Los Angeles]] in 2003. He was received with hostility, but was said to have answered questions "like a [[Automobile salesperson#Popular culture|tire salesman]]".<ref name="jib"/> When he was asked how he, as an atheist, could regulate religion in China, he replied, "In China, the director of sports does not play sports; the director of tobacco does not smoke; and the director of religious affairs does not believe in any religion".<ref name="think"/> He said that the Protestant population in China has grown from 10 million in 1999, to 15 million in 2003 and further to 16 million in 2009.<ref>Peter Tze Ming Ng. ''Chinese Christianity: An Interplay between Global and Local Perspectives''. BRILL, 2012. {{ISBN|9004225757}}. p. 78</ref>
In the same week in 2006 of the [[World Buddhist Forum, 2006|World Buddhist Forum]], Ye Xiaowen "rejected decades of state ambivalence toward religion" by telling [[Xinhua News Agency]] that religion in general, and [[Buddhism]] in particular, has a "unique role in promoting a [[harmonious society]]",<ref name="time">{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1186613,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100903161317/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1186613,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 3, 2010|title=Renewed Faith|first=Hannah|last=Beech|location=[[Shanghai]]|date=2006-04-24|access-date=2010-08-26|publisher=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref> acknowledging the rapid revival of religiosity following China's economic reforms.<ref name="time"/> In 2007, Ye announced [[State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5]], a regulation to take force in September about the reincarnation of [[Tulku|living Buddhas]] in the [[Tibet Autonomous Region]]. It increased vetting of temples that handle [[reincarnation]]s and affirms that reincarnations done without state approval were illegal. His administration then affirmed that the government would only intervene in religious issues "related to national and societal interests".<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.china.org.cn/english/news/219721.htm|title=China Regulates the Reincarnation of the Living Buddha|first=Zhang|last=Rui|date=2007-08-03|access-date=2010-08-26|publisher=[[China Internet Information Center]]|archive-date=2010-07-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100719084425/http://www.china.org.cn/english/news/219721.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Some interpreted this order as a renewed assertion of power to choose the next [[Dalai Lama]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/27/china.jamessturcke|title=Dalai Lama defies China over successor|first=James|last=Sturcke|date=2007-11-27|access-date=2010-08-26|work=[[The Guardian]]|archive-date=2017-08-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170803130607/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/27/china.jamessturcke|url-status=live}}</ref> The current [[14th Dalai Lama]] responded in an interview with a Japanese newspaper, threatening to break with tradition and choose his own successor while he was still living.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/The-burden-of-being-Dalai-Lama/articleshow/5183939.cms|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103054830/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-10-31/india/28072137_1_tawang-14th-dalai-lama-lhasa|url-status=live|archive-date=2012-11-03|title=The burden of being Dalai Lama|first=Shobhan|last=Saxena|work=[[The Times of India]]|date=2009-10-31|access-date=2010-08-26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/11/18/4376048-tibetans-plot-future-dalai-lama-reincarnation|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604120222/http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/11/18/4376048-tibetans-plot-future-dalai-lama-reincarnation|url-status=dead|archive-date=2011-06-04|title=Tibetans plot future, Dalai Lama reincarnation|first1=Petra|last1=Cahill|first2=Eric|last2=Baculinao|location=[[Beijing]]|publisher=[[MSNBC]]|date=2008-11-18|access-date=2010-08-26}}</ref>
===Olympics and unrest=== In the runup to the [[2008 Summer Olympics|2008 Beijing Olympics]] in February, Ye Xiaowen traveled to the United States to address [[Presidency of George W. Bush|Bush administration]] concerns about Chinese religious policy. He met with Undersecretary of State [[Paula Dobriansky]], ambassador for religious freedom [[John Hanford]], and retired [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington|Archbishop of Washington]] [[Theodore McCarrick]]. He said that China respects religious belief, criticized the [[United States Department of State|U.S. State Department]]'s last annual report on religious freedom, and explained the muted response over the [[List of awards and honours received by the 14th Dalai Lama|Dalai Lama's Congressional Gold Medal]]. There, he expressed hope for reconciliation with the Vatican, with whom the People's Republic does not currently have ties because it recognizes [[Taiwan]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.sudanvisiondaily.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=31960|title=China Official Explains Religion Policy|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716162641/http://www.sudanvisiondaily.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=31960|archive-date=2011-07-16|url-status=dead|date=2008-02-24|access-date=2010-08-26|agency=[[Associated Press]]|location=[[Washington, D.C.|Washington]]|publisher=Sudan Vision}}</ref>
After the [[2008 Tibetan unrest]], Ye published an opinion piece in a December edition of ''[[China Daily]]''. Entitled, "Shangri-La has changed and Tibetans know it", he criticized those who thought themselves "'experts' [about Tibet] after reading a mere handful of texts". Quoting from [[Lost Horizon]], the work that introduced the concept of [[Shangri-La]], he said that Tibet would only become "an everlasting peaceful land" if separatist agitation were quashed and all ethnic groups in Tibet developed equally.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.chinadaily.net/china/2008-12/08/content_7280104.htm|title=Shangri-La has changed and Tibetans know it|first=Ye|last=Xiaowen|publisher=[[China Daily]]|date=2008-12-08|access-date=2010-08-26}}{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
==Central Institute of Socialism== Ye was promoted in September 2009 to the Secretary of the CCP committee at the [[Central Institute of Socialism]], replacing [[Lou Zhihao]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/government/2009-01/20/content_7413382.htm|title=Personnel Changes|date=2009-09-22|access-date=2010-08-26|publisher=[[China Daily]]|archive-date=2010-11-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128114421/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/government/2009-01/20/content_7413382.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Former Deputy Director [[Wang Zuo'an]] was promoted to Director, a routine move that is not expected to effect changes in policy.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/94/1/1/1268390/1.html|script-title=zh:宗教局長換人 專家指政策不變|language=zh|trans-title=New Chairman for SARA, Experts Says Policy Has Not Changed|publisher=[[Ming Pao]]|date=2009-09-18|access-date=2010-08-26|archive-date=2012-02-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120223135803/http://news.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/94/1/1/1268390/1.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Catholic Church]]-affiliated ''Asia News'' was especially critical of Ye's legacy, calling him "a perfect representative of the idea that religions should be subservient to the power and supremacy of the Party".<ref name="an">{{Cite news|url=http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16351&size=A|title=Ye Xiaowen, party hound on Vatican and religions, is promoted|first=Bernardo|last=Cervellera|date=2009-09-17|access-date=2010-08-26|publisher=Asia News|archive-date=2019-01-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190116100500/http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16351&size=A|url-status=live}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
{{S-start}} {{s-off}} {{Succession box| before = [[Zhang Shengzuo]] | title = Director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs| years = 1995–1998 | after = Post abolished}} {{Succession box| before = Post created | title = Director of the [[State Administration for Religious Affairs]] | years = 1998–2009| after = [[Wang Zuo'an]]}} {{s-ppo}} {{Succession box| before = [[Lou Zhihao]] | title = Party Secretary of the Central Institute of Socialism | years = 2009–2016| after = [[Pan Yue (politician)|Pan Yue]]}} {{S-end}}
{{Directors of the State Administration for Religious Affairs}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ye, Xiaowen}} [[Category:1950 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Chinese Communist Party politicians from Hunan]] [[Category:People from Ningxiang]] [[Category:Tuanpai]] [[Category:Chinese government officials]] [[Category:Politicians from Changsha]] [[Category:Members of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference]] [[Category:Alternates of the 16th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]] [[Category:Alternates of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]] [[Category:Members of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]]